watercolour, pen and grey ink over graphite, with scratching out on paper

Dimension(s):

height, 227, mmwidth, 286, mm

Acquisition:

given; 1861; Ruskin, John

Notes:

From the beginning of his career, Turner was conscious of the importance of having a clearly-defined patch of light as a focus in a composition. Here, he exaggerates the height of the tower, thus anchoring the composition and drawing the eye through the fluidly-washed mists of colour. In a chapter on ‘Turnerian Topography’ in volume IV of Modern Painters, Ruskin justified Turner’s practice of altering scale or perspective in a landscape composition on the grounds that,‘many of the facts in nature are so subtle, that they must be slightly exaggerated, in order to be made noticeable when they are translated into the comparatively clumsy line of even the best drawing’ (IV, 1888, 33). (Text from 'Ruskin's Turners' Exhibition Website).